Number One on Podiobooks (today)

Just a quick one. I noticed that I'm number one on podiobooks.com's 'Most Subscribed To Books of The Last 30 Days' chart. This is only because 'One Among the Sleepless' was added in the last month and such a surge of interest is natural under the circumstances, but still, it's nice while it lasts.
If you aren't a member of Podiobooks yet, why not join? (It's free and easy). Then you can go to my page and give me some stars: obviously 5 for everything would be nice. You can even write a review of the book and start a discusion of it, the reading, the whole thing. It's your big chance to break into literary criticism - and a great opportunity to give me a late Christmas present of 5 stars all the way. So much nicer than socks.

Windfarm
Phew! I've had a hard day's editing and swearing at different video editing software programs. My second 'One Among the Sleepless' video promo is now online at YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-TTQATGj1Rc
My nephews-in-law (though both are grown men and could doubtless thrash me in an arm-wrestling match) and I shot this against all odds - high winds and no thermal undies - on Dec 26th while you were all eating cold turkey sandwiches and watching 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'.
Now remember folks, this is a promotional video, so if you like it (or the podcast) do me a favour and send the link to your friends and anyone else you think may enjoy it. If I can pick up just one new listener as a result of this promo, then all that standing about half naked in a stiff northerly wind was worth it.

Episode 10: It’s Erotica, Jim: But Not As We Know It.
Already live on Podiobooks.com and due to click into life on Libsyn at 6.00 pm Tuesday December 26th 2006 (GMT), Episode 10 kicks off part two of One Among the Sleepless.
Obviously I can’t go into story content here due to the fact that some of the blog readers haven’t heard episode 10 yet, but I can say that it’s the first episode with a ‘sexually explicit’ warning slapped on it.
What does this mean? Well, I personally don’t think it’s going to set pulses racing: the presence of Wayne completely puts the kibosh on that. But one has to warn people all the same; there’s the real possibility that some people may be offended. There’s also the more likely possibility that they may be listening in public, and that may cause certain… responses. Clothes are shed and various bits of the human anatomy are mentioned in a somewhat perky condition. I don’t think anyone is going to find themselves in a perky state as they listen to it, but you never know. Obviously if you’re listening at home, this shouldn’t prove too problematic either way. However, if you’re intending to listen to this on the train or on the bus commuting to or from work, be warned. I don’t, as I say, think that gentlemen will need to discreetly place their bowler hats on their laps, but you may feel a certain reddening of the cheeks. After all, it’s not every day that you find yourself on the 7.30 train to Paddington listening to a bizarre sexual entanglement. Or is it?
As the waiter says with a sly wink as he plonks a plate of oysters in front of you… ‘Enjoy.’

And by the way, the Christmas pudding was delicious.

Christmas Day 11.00 am

'It's Christmas!' as Noddy Holder screams from the radio so often at this time of year. I'm sitting at my brother in law's computer in Wexford while my wife struggles downstairs with a home-made Christmas pudding she started work on about seven weeks ago. Neither she nor I have ever had a home-made Christmas pudding. In fact I don't think any of the people coming here later today have. Have you? I don't even particularly like Christmas pudding; it's too rich, so sweet it's almost bitter. I usually drown the thing in about a gallon of custard or cream or whatever neutralizing liquid happens to be lying around on the table. Still, my wife's a good cook and she's followed Delia Smith's recipe, so I'm optimistic that it'll be nice.

My brother in law is also a good cook. He loves cooking, and he loves sixties-type garage punk too. He's downstairs right now listening to the Garagepunk.com Christmas Podcast and fisting a dead bird. What better way to start the day?

As for me, I've phoned my parents over in England (they're very well and having a jolly time). And now I'm sitting here writing this and wondering what to expect later. I think about five more people are coming: my brother in law's parents, my other sister in law and her daughter, and another brother in law. Add to that my father in law and you have quite a table full. I don't know what time the drinking is going to start, but I imagine that by the time the Christmas pudding hits the table, we should all be in a fit state to enjoy it - whatever it tastes like.

OK, I'm going downstairs now to loiter around the drinks cabinet looking both innocent and thirsty at the same time. Merry Christmas

Oh Brilliant! So I noticed that gaffe on ep 9 last night at about 2 am, I was consequently up till 4 am fixing it and uploading the fixed version. I didn't have time to listen to the complete thing, just the bit that had the mistake. Now, the mistake was, in my opinion, significant to the story. It was important that it be fixed and it is fixed. Good.
So we left Dublin this afternoon to come and spend Crimbo down here in Wexford in the south of Ireland with various branches of my wife's family tree. I'm on the bus and I decide to listen to the 'fixed' version of ep 9 that I uploaded at 4am this morning. What do I hear about two-thirds of the way through? A mistake! OK, this is only a typo, a flubbed line, but for Christ's sake! What I've done - I realize - is fix an early mix with the flubbed line that, ironically, is repaired in the first version of ep 9 that made it online.
Now what this means is that, since I can't get back to Dublin for a week or so, I can't fix it. So you have a choice of the episode 9 that was there - the one with a genuine error in it; or the one that's now - the one with a flubbed line. Of course, if you're a real enthusiast, you could have both and just rename them so they sit differently. But if I were you, I'd go with the one that's there now. My wife thinks I'm mental because I actually give a s***. She says I should just forget it. I think she's right, the problem is... I am mental.
(Sigh), oh forget it. I'm just sharing my madness with you... and I don't want anyone emailing me and saying 'Oh, Mike, actually you've flubbed a line...'

(Update January 20th 2007: all errors and flubbed lines etc are now fixed and #9 is as it should be)

Episode 9 - Editorial Slip

Hi there, Mike here. I noticed last night an editorial error in Episode 9. I've fixed it and it's now as it should be. It's a line of dialogue, but I feel it's an important one. If you downloaded Episode 9 before Saturday morning (4.30 am GMT), you may want to delete your existing '9' and download it again - especially if your podcatcher got it automatically and you haven't listened to it yet. If you have listened to it, no worries, but I'd still delete and download again, just so as your collection is as it should be.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Have a good Christmas.
Mike

(Update January 20th 2007: all errors and flubbed lines etc are now fixed and #9 is as it should be)

Episode 9

Episode 9 is a turning point for the central characters and is the episode that the story has been building up to. It marks the end of Part One of the novel and sets up the events of Part Two. At the end of the episode there's a promo for Jack Wakes Up by Seth Harwood.

Since creating the promo video mentioned in the previous blog, I've discovered that MySpace has a video showing facility for your homepage that allows WMV files, so I've uploaded it there too. I've also uploaded some pictures of me to my MySpace page, which it displays in a groovy slide show, again on the MySpace page. So if you'd like to see those, or even if you'd like to be a MySpace friend of mine, click here.

I start recording episode 10 today; it'll go up on Dec 26th. Fortunately I can preset that release time so I don't have to hang around here in the flat while all my chums are off stuffing themselves with Christmas leftovers or down the pub swilling back the pints. I know that a lot of you will be doing that too, and not in the slightest bit interested in One Among The Sleepless. But for those of you who really are what Scott Sigler calls 'Junkies', episode 10 will be released on schedule.
Until then, have a Merry Christmas. Cheers for now.

One Among The Sleepless: Promo Video 1

So I decided to throw my anonymity out with my dignity and freak out in a pair of jim-jams on YouTube.
I got the camera - and the jim-jams - at the weekend.
Then I freaked out and my wife filmed it all. The result is at the end of this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pepBMmd6wM

If you like it , do me a favour and share it with someone by copying this link into an email and spamming everyone you know.
The pyjamas cost €10.00 at Penny's (Primark), so if you're really taken with them, you know where to go to get a pair.
I had a mad job getting the editing done, the stupid software that came with the camera (Ulead video studio 8) didn't recognise the video it had just spent all day editing. After five hours of f******* about with that and 'Movica' (free download), I looked kind of like I do in the photo. Today I downloaded Windows Movie Maker and finally got a result. OK, so it's not smooth as silk, but it works. Stupid Ulead! Grrrrrr!

Episode 8: Half Bricks, Hancock and Vincent Price.
I've noticed that my blogs come up when I do random searches on the book title. Consequently I've been wondering about what phrases I might include in the text of the blog to draw in completely random web searchers. So if you see the odd completely unrelated
'hot pics of Britney Spears'
statement in this week's blog, don't be alarmed.
This week's episode features a trip to a recreation ground and some speculation about half bricks (see? Sentences like that like that last one don't bring anyone in. Who wants to read about 'half-bricks'?)
'Naked half-bricks - hot photos'.
For a while back in the mid-late nineties, I worked a string of jobs for agencies that specialised in supplying gardeners, refuse collectors and street-sweepers. I worked contracts in Slough, Brighton and Haywards Heath.
The half-brick thing was totally true in the Slough area: half-bricks everywhere all over recreation grounds and council estates. 'Why?' Good question. I could never figure that one out.
'Free anti-virus protection'
I remember I used to work with a gardening crew maintaining various cemeteries around Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath. I'm one of the gardeners that Dusty sees when he gets up in the morning as they start their machines and start mowing and stuff. I enjoyed that job: I got to listen to about a million audio books while I was working.

'Increase the size of your penis by inches overnight'.

Lots of old BBC tapes too: Hancock's Half Hour especially. I bought a load of Hancock's HH cassettes. The Poetry Society has to be my favourite, that and The Sleepless Night. Another BBC cassette I practically wore out was an audio drama with Vincent Price called The Price of Fear. Fantastic.
'Mike Bennett - hot naked pics xxxxxx'

Couple of technical gaffes this week with sound levels. Everything sounds fine till you upload it and then listen to it on an iPod, then you can hear the great surges and dips of volume every ten seconds. I had to re-edit it after uploading and then re-post again. If you got one of the first thirty or so downloads from libsyn, congratulations - you've got a collector's edition with genuine sound surges. Be happy, not sad, someday it might be worth something. Er...

'Naked cows - hot pics - Manchester United'.

Episode 7: Not Quite Gone With The Wind

This one took a long time. The ‘Meredith House’ story was written using a different font when the novel was published; this gave it a ‘not of this text’ look. But how was I going to do that with the podcast?

I felt that the most important thing was to find a different piece of music to intro-outro the text. In this episode, we start with Meredith House, but in later episodes (there will be another two visits to Leanne’s world) we’ll possibly arrive mid-episode and so a whole new segue would be needed. Something romantic beyond the stuff my mates have thus far contributed; something full of desire and mystery. Now where would I find that? I thought about trying to sweet-talk a busker on Grafton Street in Dublin - you see the occasional harp-player or violinist plucking their catgut. But it was all too vague, too conditional. Instead, I went to the Podsafe Music Network at Podshow.net. I searched under ‘romantic’ and I got Jim Richmond’s piece first time. I immediately knew I had what I was looking for. But surely there must be a fee for this usage? I checked with Podshow, and no. Just acknowledge the artist and the site. Artists like Jim want to share their work with the world; and podcasters – who have the same motivations – are able to help them achieve that. It’s symbiotic, innit? As Glen might say.

Thanks again to Jim and to Podshow. And to any podcasters who find themselves in a similar dilemma – you now know where to go.

Also, I’ve put a ‘guestbook’ on my homepage http://www.oneamongthesleepless.com . So you can go there, leave a comment about the podcast, and leave. You don’t need to sign up to Blogger or anything, just leave a message. So what are you waiting for? Go now.

Files Re-named
I had to rename my files on the Libsyn site following my gaffe of earlier on today. I've spent the last few hours re-loading the lost files, then, since I was using a proper FTP and not Propaganda (which names your files by the date you upload - that's right, it wasn't me that came up with that dumb naming system) I uploaded the files with a proper naming system 'Sleepless-01' etc. Of course, I now had a mixture of sensibly-named and Propaganda-dated files. So to prevent further confusion, I renamed the lot. I now have no stats on PodcastPickle. Arse! It also means that when you get the next episode, it'll be named 'Sleepless-07', which might confuse your iPod or whatever. Sorry about that. But it's all for the best, I needed to get that sorted out anyway. So, from now on, we have an agreed name format. So, you can relax. I mean, I can relax. For all I know, you aren't even reading this. Are you?
In other news, I can't believe David Gest got the heave-ho from 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!' I really thought he had that in the bag. Tonight's show is just starting, so I'm off to watch the final.

Disaster Strikes The Tired Driver

OK, well here's a blog entry! Today, while half asleep, I managed to access my Libsyn site via an FTP that I rarely use because my usual FTP device was being weird. However, I was trying to get into my website (oneamongthesleepless.com), not my Libsyn site. Now if this is all sounding boring and nonsensical, let me rewrite this in English...

I accidentally went into the place where I store my podcasts online.

Then, when I got there, I thought (I stress again that i was half asleep) 'what's all this stuff?' and don't ask my why, but I then thought, (add Homer Simpson voice) 'Stupid crap, what's this doing in my homepage?'. I then proceeded to delete about two thirds of it before I noticed exactly where I was. Then, Homer-like, I shrieked aloud. Too late. It was all deleted. So if you tried to download episodes 2, 4, 5, or 6 today, you may have had some problems. Sorry about that. I was really pissed off to see that all my podcast pickle stats are nuked: my libsyn stats are nuked, and my files now have different names. Terrific. I'll try and mend what I can, but it'll never be quite the same as it was before.

The moral of this story is, don't drive - or mess with FTPs and website files when you're half asleep. Doh!